lol fine tuning of the universe,we can't even make it out of our own atmosphere without years of preparation. To "create" a universe that is basically useless from a human standpoint(other than to gaze upon in wonder).....this was a joke right?

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There's no right there's no wrong,there's just popular opinion (Brad Pitt as Jeffery Goines in 12 monkeys)

lol fine tuning of the universe,we can't even make it out of our own atmosphere without years of preparation. To "create" a universe that is basically useless from a human standpoint(other than to gaze upon in wonder).....this was a joke right?

And decades later, after doing that, we are still struggling with the magnetosphere problem.

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An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

I'm going off topic a bit but I just had a thought about Fox News and the War on Christmas that I want to run up the flag pole.

3 points:*Fox News annual War on Christmas coverage must be in full-frontal assault mode by now, the big day is less than a week away. *Many retailers need high volume from holiday sales in order to to be profitable for the year (this is likely somewhat debatable, depending on "need" and "profit").*In reality, broadcast television exists today to providing a platform for marketing. At it's core, advertising, one way or another, pays for almost all broadcast television.

Speculation:Fox News could arguably be said to exist for the specific purpose of engaging a particular demographic that is heavily inclined toward the religious and political right. They have been granted by the Supreme Court the legal right to lie, and claim that the lies are truthful and "news". Based on my understanding of the nature of the programming, along with the nature of their target audience, I suddenly realized that Rupert Murdoch is even more of an evil genius than I've been giving him credit for.

Get the audience into a heightened emotional state (by using the buzzwords that freak them out the most as often as possible), then... switch to advertisements. Back to the program and whip them up a bit again, then back to the ads.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Endlessly.

I have a sneaking suspicion that that's actually pure marketing genius. The last thing I want to do after finishing finals is look for research on this to see what the numbers say, but I'm curious (delayed gratification though, not until after Xmas). I bet he can charge a fortune for ad time on certain shows.

Yuck, who'da thunk I'd ever want to research Fox News?

« Last Edit: December 18, 2013, 08:32:43 PM by Jag »

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"Tell people that there's an invisible man in the sky that created the entire universe and the majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure." ~George Carlin

Funny how William Lane Craig seems to just blithely assume that atheists mindlessly repeat the slogan that there's no good evidence for God's existence. I can't help but wonder if he's ever actually engaged an atheist in a discussion on the subject, or if he's just playing to his audience (my guess is the second).

But playing the game by his rules doesn't accomplish anything, so instead, I think I'll rebut his so-called reasons.

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1. God provides the best explanation of the origin of the universe.

Using 'God' as an explanation for anything is not really viable. It's synonymous with "I don't really know for sure, but God makes the most sense to me". Not just a god, but a specific god, the Christian god. That's really just a bad argument and should not be used. Worse, his explanation of a "transcendent reality/entity" which created the universe begs the question of "what created that?" At that point, it's just turtles all the way down.

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2. God provides the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe.

See above about using 'God' as an explanation for anything. Furthermore, claiming that the universe is fine-tuned is nonsense - well, unless he's claiming it was fine-tuned for the formation of black holes. It's very simple to show that the universe is anything but fine-tuned for intelligent life. Earth isn't even fine-tuned for our own variety of intelligent life (we can't live on the 70% of our planet that's covered with water, just for starters), and the entire rest of the solar system is absolutely inhospitable to human life. Never mind the roughly four cubic light-years of nothing but gas and dust that surrounds the solar system before we get to our nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri. So, no, the universe is definitely not fine-tuned for intelligent life.

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3. God provides the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

See above about using 'God' as an explanation for anything. This also assumes that there is any such thing as objective morality, which is extremely dubious, not to mention difficult to prove. Not to mention, if there were some kind of objective morality, why do we not see it in other life-forms? You don't have to be intelligent to have morals, any more than you have to be intelligent in order to hunt for food or to defend yourself against predators. The best proof for objective morality would be its existence in forms of life which could not have developed complicated morality - yet this is exactly what we don't see.

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God provides the best explanation of the historical facts concerning Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection

This presumes that the historical stuff regarding Jesus are actual facts, and that is highly dubious. Indeed, contemporary Roman and Jewish accounts seldom include any records of these supposed miracles; the ones that do are questionable at best and are likely edited or outright fakes.

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5. God can be personally known and experienced.

This begs the question of whether there's an actual being to be known and experienced. I can create fictional characters in my mind who I can personally know and experience, but that does not prove they exist outside of my mind. Furthermore, the fact that a lot of people presumably know and experience God doesn't mean anything either, because this could be true of any major fictional character (such as Darth Vader). I have very little doubt that many children who saw Star Wars could legitimately claim that they knew and had experienced Darth Vader using their imagination, but that doesn't prove Darth Vader is a real entity.

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Nullus In Verba, aka "Take nobody's word for it!" If you can't show it, then you don't know it.